More Than Kisses Letters Mingle Souls, for Thus Friends Absent Speak
by elfmaiden4legs
Summary: Re-upload. This was originally uploaded in its three individual parts. A little boy writes to John about what he saw at Bart's Hospital that fateful afternoon, John writes a reply, and Sherlock writes a letter to John which is destined never to be sent. The title is taken from a quote by the poet John Donne.
1. Dear Doctor Watson

**Dear Doctor Watson**

Dear Doctor Watson,

My name is Toby Knight and I am twelve years old. I want to say sorry for the fact that I haven't written to you sooner, but everybody I have told about what I am about to tell you has disbelieved me, and my mother and father have urged me to keep quiet on the subject because, let's face it, who would ever believe the words of a twelve year old kid? But my family and I have recently received a bit of bad news. You see I was diagnosed with cancer twelve months ago and have been under the care of the wonderful staff at Bart's Hospital ever since. I will not bore you with the details but last week we were told that the cancer has spread and there is nothing more they can do. I don't want sympathy, I know people expect me to be angry and scared but I am not afraid of dying. Anyway that is not the reason I am writing to you. You see I can see how much the news has devastated my family, and I may be young but I think that I can understand because I once heard someone say that it is always tougher on the ones left behind. When my granddad died when I was ten it broke my heart. He was my best friend you see, and for a while I struggled to see the point of my life anymore now that he was no longer a part of it. I imagine that's how you now feel without Mr Holmes. My granddad and I were always such huge fans of your stories. I would check your blog every day for any new updates, and would cycle to his house after school so we could sit down and read them together. It is so sad that he died before he got the chance to read about some of your most exiting adventures, like The Hounds of Baskerville (which is my favourite of all your stories because Henry had the same surname as mine). Mr Holmes must have been a very clever man in order to figure out all those mysteries, and I just wanted to let you know that I still believe in Sherlock Holmes. As I said Doctor Watson I am not afraid of dying, but I don't think it would be very fare of me to take what I have wanted to tell you for a long time now to my grave. It has made me feel very sad to have to keep this from you, you see I would give any amount of time I have left for just a few more minutes with my granddad – enough time to read just one more story. But we don't all get the opportunity for a second chance.

On the day of Mr Holmes' passing I was at Bart's Hospital for another round of chemotherapy. I'd heard that you were both visiting – conducting some research for your most recent case – but I wasn't allowed to leave my room to try and find you because the medicine had made me feel rather poorly, and I was told that I was too weak. I was bitterly disappointed, but I realised that my room on that day was facing the front of the hospital, and so I stood looking out of my window all day, and when I could no longer stand I sat – hoping to catch a glimpse of you both leave. I saw you leave first, alone and in quite a hurry that afternoon, and I saw you return. I also saw Mr Holmes fall from the roof a few minutes later, but he didn't hit the pavement like everybody said. I watched in horror as I saw him fall, and then I watched him land in a rubbish truck which had been parked outside the front of the hospital almost all afternoon. It was so strange because I watched him dump another body over the side – I thought it was a dummy at first until I received news of his death – and then conceal himself within the rubbish bags before the truck drove away.

I don't know why Mr Holmes would want to fake his own death, but all I can say is that it must have been for something very important. One of the boys on my ward said that he'd heard reports of snipers in the hospital that day, and that security guards were on high alert. Maybe it had something to do with that?

Don't give up on Mr Holmes Doctor Watson, and don't believe anything anybody says about him. He was a great man, and a good one. You knew him better than anybody else. Listen to what your heart is telling you, because mine is telling me that he is still out there somewhere and that he will live on long after I am dead and buried. I hope that Mr Holmes will return one day – missing someone is the worst pain in the world. But at least if you can bring yourself to believe in the word of a child I might be able to bring you some comfort in the fact that I know Sherlock Holmes is still alive.

Do you think you might consider writing back to me? I know you must be a very busy man, but it would mean a lot to me. You and Mr Holmes have really inspired me, and if by some miracle I manage to overcome the odds now stacked against me I would like to become a detective just like him. On the other hand I realise that I am just another twelve year old boy, and I will understand if you can't. It will not change the way I feel about either you or Mr Holmes.

Your fan,

Toby Knight.


	2. Letter To A Dyeing Child

**Letter To A Dyeing Child**

To Toby,

First of all I would like to apologise for not getting back to you sooner, and to let you know how grateful I was to receive your letter. As you can imagine my life has been somewhat chaotic and disorganised since my best friend – Mr Sherlock Holmes – for some reason saw fit to take his own life, and I can barely remember anything of any significance about the past few months. I have been living under a black cloud it seems – I miss Sherlock greatly, I haven't been back to the flat in all these long months – I haven't been able to face those now empty rooms where Sherlock and I once lived – Mrs Hudson has been kind enough to forward all of my mail to my new lodgings, but it has taken the words of a twelve year old boy to force me to realise that I have let him down. I have been too afraid to challenge the awful things that people who neither knew nor cared about Sherlock Holmes have been saying, for fear of what I might find, but I see now that he truly was a great man and the best of friends I could ever have hoped to have.

I am indeed deeply touched that you would take the time to write to me – and you have given me the hope and courage to carry on. Only someone who had taken the time to get to know the real Sherlock Holmes, not the man portrayed by the media, could know how his brilliant mind worked. Indeed he could be the most infuriating of individuals to live and work with at times – the mundane habits of day to day living carried no standing with him, but he could find fascination in the most seemingly inconsequential of things.

This is however how I know now that what you say you saw on the roof of Bart's Hospital that day is the truth – I have read and re-read every word of your letter in the weeks since I received it and I have come to the conclusion that only Sherlock could pull off a plan so incomplex in its theory and yet so elaborately executed – it does indeed have his signature written all over it.

I must confess that when I first received you letter I was dubious as to its nature, which is why it has taken me a while to get back to you and say thank you – it seems that there are no end of people prepared to jump on the band waggon in the wake of a great man's – such as Sherlock Holmes' – death, but yours has been a voice of reason in a sea of lies and malign voices which could very easily drive a man to the very brink of human endurance.

I didn't get long to spend with Sherlock, but throughout the eighteen months that we spent living and working together he became a better friend than many I had already known for a lifetime, he changed me, he put the fire back into my belly when I had previously forgotten what living was all about – and I will always remember that time as being, without a single doubt in my mind, the best few months of my entire life, and for that I will be forever grateful to him.

I am sorry about your granddad, as a child I too was very close to mine growing up and he also died when I was about your age, but I am glad that you both got to enjoy the blog together whilst he was still alive. I haven't written anything since the day after Sherlock's death – I haven't been able to bring myself too – but as I say you have given me renewed hope.

Even so I doubt there will be any more stories – I don't know why Sherlock Holmes would see fit to fake his own death, but rest assured that if he's still alive out there I will find him.

One last thing Toby, don't take what the doctors say too much to heart, we are after all a pessimistic breed. One thing that living with Sherlock has taught me is that miracles do happen – so take your medication Toby, and don't take any foolish or unnecessary risks with your health just to prove a point, but never give up – carry on fighting until there is no strength left in you to fight anymore, and then take a deep breath and carry on pushing for the impossible – that is after all what Sherlock Holmes would do.

Just do that and you might just prove everybody wrong, as he himself has done so many times before.

I'll be looking out for your name someday.

Warm regards,

Dr John Watson.


	3. The Letter Sherlock Never Sent

**The Letter Sherlock Never Sent**

Dear John,

I don't know why I am writing this, I know you will never read it, but there are some things just too important to be left unsaid. I'm not good with sentiment, you've known me for long enough now to know not to expect too much of me in that respect, but this has got nothing to do with sentiment, it is to do with truth, and the truth hurts John.

I just never expected it to hurt like this.

The thing is I never wanted to let you go, to turn my back on my life, and say goodbye. I meant what I said John, I don't have friends – I've just got one, and for better or for worse I did what I did to protect you. Moriarty gave me no other choice. I had to kill myself or you would die. No matter what the cost I couldn't let that happen. I did what I did to save your life.

I am sorry though for the pain I have caused, and I can honestly say that I never meant to hurt you. If it is any consolation I hated seeing you cry. It is true what I said, that I don't do sentiment, but in that moment I knew your agony, because I could feel it too.

There wasn't time to tie up loose ends – one of my many regrets – and I am sorry for the mess I have left in my wake. I thought what I was doing was for the best, that given time you would move on with your life, and that you might someday forget all about me. But I know now that life, and friendship for that matter, is not as simple as that, matters of the heart very rarely are – it is the reason I have always done my best to distance myself from my emotions – and I'm sorry John, because I am the guilty one. I gave away everything, but I never meant to break your heart.

You were never anything less than a true and loyal friend.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I miss you. It has taken me time to get to grips with my emotions. There has been an empty void in my life since the day that I first left London, and I think I finally know what I'm missing now – it's you. I long to hear your voice, I need to hear you say something – a reassuring reminder of home. You kept me grounded – I didn't realise it at the time. I'd spent so much of my life alone. But now without you I am slowly beginning to lose touch with reality, to forget what it once felt like to wake up free in the morning, to know that your life was your own, and to run through the streets of London in pursuit of a suspect with the breeze blowing the drizzle through your hair, and a loyal friend by ones side – such is a life in hiding – such is a life without you.

The truth is that sometimes I wish I'd died for real that day John – because this isn't living. It's a miserable heartbreak of an existence and I hate it. I hate it! I don't want to feel this pain anymore. I've had enough! I'm so tired of fighting.

I'm so alone now John, and for the first time in my life I think I know what true fear feels like. I don't know who to trust anymore, and I don't know who to turn to now that you're gone. All I know is that I don't seem to know anything anymore. I only hope that I made the right decision and that we might meet again someday, but please don't hate me if we ever do!

Just remember that everything I did I did for you, because I couldn't bear to watch you die, and please be assured that you remain to this day the most important person in my life – but I know the time has finally come to say goodbye, and so I set you free from a life permanently associated with my name. You have your own life to lead, and so this is the first and final time you will ever hear from me…

Thank you John, for everything.

Sherlock.


End file.
